Second Chance
by dinabar
Summary: Missing scene in Shadows. Harry and Nikki deal with the events of the day, before the six weeks later ending
1. Chapter 1

**All characters and situations belong to the BBC, I'm just borrowing them for a while.**

**I know the ending to Shadows was 'cute' but I never really felt it resolved the episode properly. I found the episode quite disturbing, maybe because I'm in education, or maybe because it was supposed to be. But I needed Harry and Nikki to confront each other at the end of the day and here's how I thought it could play out. Understandably it's a little dark at first, we're also trapped inside Harry's head, so sorry Nikki purists. I promise it gets lighter towards the end... don't mind if you hate it but feedback would be great.**

Second Chance

Harry continued to stare at the red light on the bomb and slipped slowly to the floor. He pressed his back up against the wall, drew his knees in and stared at the wall opposite. There was a red brown smudge on the wall that his eyes fixated on. He tried to focus every ounce of his brain to determine what or where the splatter had come from, but he knew he was just trying to block out the relentless shaking of his limbs and the fact that he should be dead.

How could someone? Why? He was just a kid, a scared little kid. His brain rambled through the scenes of the day. No matter how much he drank he wasn't going to erase the memory of Detective Sage having his brains blown out in front of him, nor the look on Nikki's face when he had convinced her to stay and help him. Or how he had led her out of that classroom and into the hallways of death. Why had he done it? He wasn't thinking about Scott this time, but himself. Why had he purposely put her in danger. It was enough that he had the death wish, but to bring her along with him? He could have let her leave with the others. And she was so scared. Even with just their fingers touching he could feel the fear emanating from her body and those shoes, those shoes, why did she have to wear such loud shoes?

He could feel his brain swimming again and pulled his focus back to the smudge, brain matter he pondered? It was a better topic than Nikki's footwear. Did she just wear the heels so she felt she could measure up to him somehow? To stop him using his height advantage in their little power plays. Is that why she had stayed and helped him? Please. He couldn't bear that on his conscience as well, the idea that she had to be seen to be as good as him.. didn't she know, nothing would ever make him belittle her.

'Think smudge think smudge' his brain chanted.

Maybe she just liked the heels and liked the effect they had on him? But that was an even more dangerous direction to go in today. Today, everything had changed today. Fourteen or more dead and the hour or so he spent patching up Scott Weston, championing a cause that everyone else disagreed with. He ran his hand roughly over his face. Why was he such an idiot?

He gave into the trembling for a while. He was vaguely aware of a police officer coming in and telling him that the building needed to be cleared and it was time to leave. He wasn't entirely sure what his response had been, but the man had left quickly, and closed the door behind him. He had probably gone for the reinforcements. There would probably be another apology letter he'd have to write after all this was over. He'd have to leave soon but what would he say?

"Hi, I'm Harry Cunningham and I wished I was dead," it sounded like a bad introduction at an AA meeting. He was going to need to think of something to get through this. There was no way the usual rules applied on a day like today.

He'd worked the rules out very scientifically during a very slow week one summer. It was a based on terrorist threat levels. All listed and ranked according to severity, tidy and neat and easily controllable, just as he liked it. It had been working wonders for him and stopped the embarrassing moments where he had found himself staring across the office or lab open mouthed just watching her. It was true she hadn't taken off any underwear in front of him recently but all the same they were a welcome safety net. It was all about Nikki of course and how to keep himself sane.

Threat Level Low, boring day - dodgy joke, happy smiles

Threat Level Moderate, normal day - happy smiles, a quick whiff of her perfume, or carefully timed entrance into the locker room, so that she had already left but everything around smelt of her.

Threat Level Substantial, more gruesome day, difficult case, bit of an argument etc. - allowed an invasion of personal space and full on sniff of the hair.

Threat Level Substantial, element of danger, or personal issues - warranted some hand holding and prolonged eye contact.

Threat Level Critical, trauma, personal and real danger, Nikki crying etc. - full on hug and chaste forehead kiss plus any of the above.

He'd assumed 5 levels would be enough, he hadn't banked on being holed up with a gun toting maniac with a sideline in bombing. Or on the fact that it was he who had put her life in more danger. No chaste kiss on the top of the head was going to come close to burying these memories. Why wasn't he dead?

He started to bang his head methodically against the wall, it was soothing in an odd kind of way. Pounding along with the thumping of his headache. When had he last slept? Or drank? Or eaten anything? He made an effort to stand but found himself distracted by that red smudge. Maybe it was Scott Weston's cheek bone. He shuddered and slipped down to the floor again.

It had been a while since he had seen the policeman, he must have found someone by now. There must be a few people alive out there. Someone surely could come and help him. Hadn't he spent most of the day helping that sorry bastard? But then his blood ran cold, what if she came to help? What if they sent Nikki? It wasn't that he minded her seeing him in this state. He'd broken down in front of her before, but not today. Today he couldn't trust himself. His code finished at Level 5 and this was way beyond that. He couldn't trust himself to hold her today because today he would not be able to let go.

That would just finish the day off perfectly. Blowing the best friend he ever had, because the memories couldn't be removed until he'd lost himself entirely. Was he really fool enough to believe that, that would make a difference to the horror of the day. No he would just be using her like Scott Weston had used him. They were both sick bastards.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back again the wall. He heard the door open, but stayed where he was, impressed that finally his legs had seemed to stop shaking. He knew it was her, he could feel her, smell her but he couldn't touch her, he just couldn't. He willed with all his might that she would stay away from him.


	2. Chapter 2

"Harry? Are you asleep? How can you sleep in the middle of what's been going on? You're unbelievable!" Nikki said and then in a slightly more concerned tone

"Harry are you all right?"

He must have grunted because she lent down and he imagined her peering at him.

"Come on Harry, get up, lets go home, I need to go to bed"

Harry sucked in some air and wondered if he was dreaming. Was he hearing things?

"Come on Harry," Nikki's voice was louder this time, "Get up before I kick your ass and get you up that way,"

"Come on Harry," plaintive voice he noticed this time, "This has been a shitty day and I need you to come out of here with me now!"

Harry breathed out, he knew what she was doing, he might well have a list of rules and responses but Nikki had similar weapons in her arsenal. She was obviously going through a check list to find out just how screwed up he was.

Failure to respond to open innuendo..

Failure to respond to a competition...

Failure to respond to Nikki in trouble...

He'd have to do something soon or she would be calling for the men in white coats. He opened his eyes a fraction and looked at her.

"What happened to your shoes?" he heard the words and it took a moment to register that it was him who had spoken.

'Great,' he thought just another perfect way to end this awful day, with his mouth operating entirely it seemed without connection to his brain.

'This could get very bad, very quickly,' he mused.

"My shoes? Harry? Nikki had an incredulous tone but carried on. "I had to chuck them. They were covered in blood, I'd only just got cleaned up from the first lot, when some trigger happy copper got me covered in it for the second time. I was all out of spare clothes by then, so it was scrubs and trainers or nothing."

"A second time?" Harry asked, feeling very proud of the fact that he'd followed the conversation and even understood it.

"Yes Harry," Nikki rambled. "While you've been in here patching together a mass murderer, I've been held at gunpoint, tied up, screamed at, terrified and had yet another child's brain blown out in front of my eyes, all over my clothes, AND SHOES but don't mind me and my day, what's new with you other than a shoe fetish?"

He could hear the tiredness in her voice, it wouldn't take much to turn this ugly. She'd had a terrrible day. Could he engineer a fight with her? That way she would leave him alone, and he could go home, get drunk and lick his wounds and never have to face her with this raw ball of stifling, putrid emotion that was boiling around inside him.

"He used me," Harry mumbled.

"Get real Harry!" Nikki was sounding really fed up now.

"Everyone uses everyone Harry. This is not new information. How many times have you used me? I know you prefer the smell of my shampoo over the smell of corpse, and you use me to clear your nostrils after an autopsy. And I use you to finish my paperwork, or to go get the coffee. It's what people do Harry"

"Yes, but we're friends," he stammered, with his brain adding 'busted' in the background.

"He asked me to stay with him," Harry said very quietly. Nikki hadn't replied so he went on "Even when I was doing all I could to save him, he was determined to have me stay, so that I'd get caught in the bomb blast. How can someone be that evil? For crying out loud I was doing brain surgery on the floor of this dirty stinking toilet and all he could think about in between dying was taking as many more people out with him as he could."

Harry realised he was shouting. He continued rambling unsure himself of the words but expelling the poisonous venom from inside himself. Somewhere through the diatribe Harry realised he must have stood up because he suddenly found himself, towering above Nikki, in full rage mode, shouting and clenching his fists. He quickly turned round and gripped onto the dingy windowsill. He rested his head against the cool glass and let the feeling numb his brain. He could hardly bear to see the effect this latest outburst had had on Nikki. So as he turned around he searched the wall opposite to rediscover the smudge or blood pool that had calmed him earlier. He still couldn't work out how it had got there, the rest of the blood spatter had hit the wall with the basins.

"What are you staring at?" Nikki asked and followed his line of sight across the room. "It looks like someone's chucked up pizza at the wall, did you ever eat at the cafeteria here, it is truly revolting." He knew she was trying to jolly him along, but in that moment he realised she was right. He had been sat there staring for ages, on the wrong track entirely and she waltzes in and within five minutes has all the answers and everything sewn up. Of course it was vomit why hadn't he realised before? Why did she have to be so effortlessly brilliant? He really hated her sometimes.

How had this happened to him? Had he been just staring at life and never really living it. And Nikki walked in and saw through it all. All the avoiding of emotional connections, the fear of loss, or of scr ewing things up, and she stole his heart as easily as she'd stolen his desk all those years ago?

Why now wh en he made decisions did he always consider what Nikki would think of it? How had she become the standard by which he measured everything? The thought crashed in on him like a tid al wave. Is that why he had asked her to stay and help him when she could have escaped? Because without her he was lost? Without her, he was an emotionally str angled child? The ra ge he'd felt through the day was rapidly turning into self loathing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Ah and she's trying her hardest...poor Harry**

"You did the right thing, Harry," her voice sounded soothing but it wasn't working for him today.

"Did I?" he spat, "Did I really? In whose eyes have I been doing the right thing?

"I know you did the right thing Harry. It matters to me." Nikki said softly.

"He was a psychopath and a sociopath!"

"Yes," Nikki interrupted "he was sick, he needed help, you tried to help, Harry"

"Well maybe I should have just stayed away, we should have left when we had the chance, I'm sorry I made you stay." Harry apologised. The self loathing was really beginning to kick in now.

"You presumptuous git!" Nikki exploded. "How dare you think you made me do anything? I am not denying I was scared Harry. I was. I was terrified, but it was the right thing to do and if I had to do it again, I would, so don't go telling yourself that you made me walk out of that room and into those hallways because YOU did not!"

He heard her breathing heavily, and sighed, finally after a day at sea emotionally he was on familiar territory. Fights with Nikki were a speciality of his and violent or not, he could chose his words to reign blows of pain straight into her soul.

"You're telling me, that if you had been in there on your own, you would have done the same thing?" Harry sneered at her.

"Or that you would have stayed and kept Scott Weston alive, even if you knew he was the killer." Harry paused for breath.

"Yes, you probably would, you always did love a lost cause." Harry waited for a reply, he didn't dare look at her, but he could still feel her anger radiating across the room to him.

"I know what you're doing and you don't scare me Harry," she said quietly.

"I've spent the afternoon locked in with the man I assumed was the killer, with an automatic weapon pointed at my head, I am really not in the mood to fight with you today Harry. I told Neil that he could go ahead and kill me, because not a soul would miss me. I had hoped I was lying."

He heard her pause for breath, waiting for him to reply. She must know he thought, she must realise I would miss her, but he couldn't face that conversation now and emotional coward that he was, he kept quiet.

"Don't go thinking everything has changed Harry," she was challenging him now, her words clipped and angry.

"The people you hated yesterday, are still the people you hate today, and the people you loved yesterday are the same as the people you love today, you might view them slightly differently after standing under a bomb, or having a gun poked down your neck, but really Harry it's all just the same, nothing has changed."

"Nothing has changed?" he exploded..

"Nothing has changed! Nothing ever changes! I've had twice as much life as those poor kids lying dead out there in the hallway, and what have I got to show for it. Nothing! Nothing! Nothing! He turned his face away in self disgust and leaned into the window again..

"So take a chance and do something Harry," she sounded weary and fed up, there was a possibility she would leave him alone soon, and he could curl up somewhere and surface next spring. He tuned in again to hear a rambling list of suggestions she was offering him,

"...take up yoga, go skydiving, learn to fly, do one of those Alpha courses and find God, get married, have a couple of kids, become pathologist of the year, go and do charity work in the Sudan..

"Nikki please stop" he begged. He still had his back to her, he took a deep breath and said

"I just want you.." he paused

and then bottled it ".....to go away."

"Well don't say I didn't try." she countered

"If you want to slink off home and tape a bag to your head, then go do it Harry, but don't pretend for an instant that no one would care!"

He heard her move, heard the door open and crash shut again and silence as he imagined her stomping off down the corridor.


	4. Chapter 4

**Don't worry they'll be friends again soon, I promise**

S**orry Harry gets a bit of potty mouth here, but just look away for a couple of paragraphs, and assume he's quite angry, it you'd prefer to skip it.**

What had he done?

And what had she said?

He knew he'd tried to make her angry but he couldn't quite believe she'd actually said those words.

He found the first aid box to hand on the floor near him and before he knew it, he was swinging the box wildly and crashing it against the radiator again and again. Chunks of plastic were splitting off and flying about in all directions. He found his rhythm, beating the box again and again. And then started hurling abuse at himself.

"Shit! You useless wanker! You don't deserve her! You idiot! You coward! She gave you so many chances, so many opportunities to tell her and you bloody well told her to leave! She's never talking to you again! Why couldn't you just tell her you loved her, you've always loved her. That your only regret when you were sure you were going to die, was that you had never told her you loved her and those dreams of the future together. Well you can kiss that goodbye because, nothing, nothing is going to put this right Harry Cunningham, you stupid messed up fuck!"

The box was nearly in pieces now, he reigned down one last vicious blow causing the rest of the contents to explode all over the floor. He watched intrigued as a packet of bandages rolled across the floor and came to a stop against a white trainer. Harry stopped breathing.

White trainer.

White trainer attached to leg, wearing scrubs.

White trainer attached to Nikki's leg, standing by the door, staring at him open mouthed, look of horror and tears streaming down her face.

Silence.

"You didn't leave?" Harry spluttered.

Silence.

"You were here, I thought... I was...you....the whole time? It was the shoes!"" Harry realised he was making no sense at all, and doubted even in her current state Nikki would let him get away with another shoe comment so soon after the other one. If only she'd been in her usual heels he would have heard her stalk off down the corridor ...or not.

"Nikki?" he asked in the gentlest way he knew how.

When she didn't reply Harry went into overdrive. The inactivity of earlier was transformed into manic energy as he paced up and down the room. He was completely exposed. It was liberating and terrifying, but all she was doing was looking horrified and crying silently.

He was a fool to think they had a future together.

She was too good for him.

He couldn't imagine what the rest of her 'lovers' had that he didn't. If the mere mention of him loving her, made her so horrified. She obviously didn't feel the same way about him and yet he searched her face for any sign that he meant something to her.

"Don't cry Niks," he pleaded.

"You said it yourself, nothing has changed, we can still be friends can't we?.. It doesn't matter you know. It's true I've loved you this long and it hasn't affected our friendship. But don't leave me altogether, please don't leave me" he was rambling and pacing and rapidly losing the little dignity he thought he might have left.

"It's not that" Nikki spoke. Harry immediately stopped pacing and stared at her.

"I'm sorry." she continued. Harry froze for the second time in minutes, his brain screaming 'No! Don't say it!' He covered his face with his hands. He couldn't bear the let down, 'your my friend but I'm not interested' speech from her.

"No Harry, listen I'm sorry I can't believe I said those terrible things to you, about your dad, it was unforgivable, I'm truly truly sorry."

"It's ok Nikki, you were angry. You were right to be angry with me. Hell I was even trying to make you angry. Please stop crying" Harry said soothingly, he couldn't bear the sight of her crying and he had started pacing again. She might well be in the process of breaking his heart but he couldn't stand her tears. Threat Level Critical, the logical part of his brain piped in, but even now he didn't trust himself to hold her.

But Nikki hadn't finished,

"I don't understand, how can I hurt you so much when I'm in love with you too?" It took a moment for this speech to register in Harry's brain before his pacing swept her up into his arms and he started to kiss her. She was soft and warm and she had told him she loved him. He pulled her closer and deepened the kiss.

Harry stopped to wipe away her tears and look into her brown eyes. Her hair was tied simply at the back of her head, and she hadn't bothered with the make up after the last shower. She looked just as she did the first day he'd met her.

"You are so beautiful," he said. She was staring up at him, eyes red rimmed, shining but still hesitant.

"Harry, I really am so sor" he kissed her again quickly before she had time to finish.

"I'm sorry too Nikki, I'm sorry for all this, I'm sorry for using you, and not telling you, and for fighting with you, but I'm not sorry that because of this we have started something here."

He ran his finger down her cheek. He still wasn't sure what threat level the gun toting maniac warranted but if it allowed him to hold her, kiss her, touch her face and tell her he loved her he was ready to throw his rule book out the window.

"Come on Harry, let's go home, I need to go to bed" Nikki said. Harry realised she was echoing her words from earlier.

He raised an eyebrow at her, and then in a more serious tone asked,

"Take it slow?"

Nikki made an extraordinary noise. Harry wondered if she had suddenly sneezed until he realised she was laughing at him.

"Slow? Harry Cunningham? You claim to have been in love with me for the last 6 years, and you've kissed me twice! I'm fine with slow Harry, but I do not want to be drawing my pension before you get beyond second base!" Harry laughed too, and then breathed a sigh of relief. They were back, it was ok. She could still tease him, maybe things would be alright after all.

Nikki turned took a step closer to the door and opened it. Harry felt suddenly routed to the spot. This was the room where he was supposed to die, it didn't seem right to just leave. Outside that door this time was not some psychopathic teenager, but the second half of his own life. Did he have the guts to really make changes, to find out what he really wanted. Nikki was staring at him quizzically she reached her hand back and twined her fingers with his, giving him a little tug so she could lead him out into the hallway. His life was really going in circles today, but this time it was Nikki taking the lead, is that what he really wanted? With this second chance he had, shouldn't he be making his own decisions? He followed her anyway, wondering what had gone through Nikki's mind earlier when he had led her into the corridor. Would she really have done it without him? Could he do this now without her?

He was drawn from his reverie by Nikki prattling on. She must be distracting him or herself from the blood stains and debris along the hallway, thinking it might be important he started to listen.

"....don't think you're getting away with this Harry, you know, most girls get treated romantically when someone they've known for a long time first confesses their love. You know, a nice picnic, a trip to Paris, a moonlit dinner by the river, a beautiful stroll along the coast at sunset. And what do I get? It's typical. A first kiss, well almost first kiss under a dud bomb, in a stinking student toilet surrounded by blood and brain matter. Don't think you can fob me off on any anniversaries we may have with a trip to a unromantic crime scene to recreate the mood.." She finally paused for breath.

"You said it was pizza," Harry interjected stopping dead in his tracks and causing her to stop and turn round to look at him.

"Yeah," she said non-committally,

"I might have been wrong."

Harry broke into the biggest smile of his life, she had told him she loved him and now she was prepared to admit to him that occasionally just occasionally she might be wrong and he might be right.

"This is going to work isn't it?" he asked, feeling for the first time that any relationship they started wouldn't just be a big bang and then fizzle to nothing.

"It had better," she said, "because I know a lot of ways to bump people off, without anyone ever finding the truth," she laughed.

He loved the way her eyes sparkled when she laughed. Who was he kidding, he just loved her.

"I really do love you Nikki," he said pulling her into a hug.

"I know" she said simply, planting a kiss on his cheek.

"You really need to explain this thing about the pizza though, and the shoes I feel like I'm missing bits of whatever's going on in there Harry," this time she tapped the top of his head.

"Just taking a bit of advice my best friend gave me." Harry said wisely.

"You have friends?"she guffawed.

"When can I meet them?"

Harry playfully punched her on the shoulder and then swept his arm across her shoulder and began to walk towards the exit, Nikki wrapped her own arm around his waist and fell into step beside him. They walked side by side in silence, and as they passed through the doors back into the fresh air Harry promised himself he wasn't going to waste this second chance.


End file.
